September- Anti-Drug Sig Month?

[bagheadinc]

[quote="StruckingFuggle";p="673503"]What would you propose we do with drunk drivers?[/quote]

Destruction Derby?

[StruckingFuggle]

Well, perhaps, but how do you propose to catch them in the first place?

[bagheadinc]

Open bar?

[Deacon]

[quote="StruckingFuggle";p="673503"]Deacon, while I consider what you said[/quote]
Please do so and don't use that sentence as a cheap cop-out to skip out actually responding, as you've done so far in getting sidetracked with conversations with others.

Thought: there's no good system with something like driving drunk to establish who's drunk and who's not, ergo to catch the drunks who're a danger to the public, you have to end up catching some more or less innocent people in the same net.

Wrong. Entirely and completely. The only way you can catch innocent people in a net is if you're casting a net to begin with, such as these ridiculous roadblocks. If a cop sees someone stumbling to their car, he should stop that person and talk to them. If a cop's out patrolling at 2am and sees a car swerving a little, even just failing to stay in their lane, hell just changing lanes without using a blinker, he should pull over that person and have a quick chat with them, just in case. If it turns out they're just inconsiderate and weren't using a blinker, verbally warn them to please use their blinker in the future and drive safely. If they're actually intoxicated, take 'em down. Patroling areas with a high number of bars (say, 6th Street in Austin, for instance) may produce a greater efficiency in this manner, too. But if you're in bumfuck Montana, you could drive all night without seeing another set of headlights. Maybe driving at 0.8 in those circumstances shouldn't actually result in destroying your life due to an organization's agenda with a heartstring-tugging story and prohibitionist ideals eating at their legitimacy like acid.

Nor can you accurately predict how a person will be impaired at what BAC (right?).

You can reasonably predict it, though it will vary slightly by how good a driver the person is sober as well as how accustomed they are to drink.

So the system, by default, cannot right now be specific enough to discriminate perfectly between the impaired and the unimpaired - and since a failure of the system results in people dying, and not as a necessarily rare event, it becomes a special case (for which the driver isn't punished nearly enough)

How is that a question? You do make a number of assumptive statements, though, such as that "a failure of the system results in people dying" though that is certainly not necessarily the case; again, the average BAC of drivers involved in vehicular fatalities (not all, just those involving drunk drivers) is 0.17 according to that article, not half that, 0.8, the current federally mandated limit. And it's not a failure of the system, a rather dangerous train of thought, but rather it would be a failure on the part of the individual to abide by the normal rules of the raod and/or to properly control their vehicle. In reality, it is rare that someone technically meeting or exceeding the legal limit causes the death of another person, especially at the lower end of that scale. But then again, fire enough shots randomly in the air, and you will eventually hit someone.

But since when do you care about people who break the democratically established law just because they want to?

I'm not sure I understand. I'm arguing that the improperly imposed federal mandates should be revisted and relaxed.

And shouldn't you be mad at the people who drive drunk

I don't understand. Are you suggesting I'm not? Is this just a red herring? I don't see how it impacts the effectiveness or sensibility of these federal mandates nor the discussion about those mandates.

and result in the need to begin with to enact laws that are necessarily overbroad and somewhat draconian just to be able to deal with them?

You're arguing from the assumption that that's accurate and is being properly and effectively dealt with.

And how can you call there to be a "freedom to drink" if there's no "freedom to shoot up"?

Go back to the Drug Test poll if you want to try to equate having a couple of beers with friends to a heroin addict.


Reminder from before:

[quote="StruckingFuggle";p="673503"]Deacon, while I consider what you said[/quote]
I'm expecting a response.

[RedBaron]

... I think I'm going to go back and read Moby Dick... the whole book is shorter than that post.

[thejerseyminx]

Cops do issue... field tests? I think that's what they're called. However the cop has to demonstrate to you what it is. No cop will make you recite the alphabet backwards, because the average person can't do that easily. They might make you walk a straight line, heel to toe. The touching the nose one is possible- but I do have trouble doing that sober, so I guess I'm lucky that I don't drink and drive. The one that I've heard of most often being used is where they make you raise one leg about a foot off the ground and count backwards from 10. I'm not positive but they might also have breathalyzers that can be taken out into the field.

Also it should be noted that breathalyzer machines have to be calibrated on a regular basis. If the police fail to do so, or fail to produce proof- you can get out of trouble.

[thejerseyminx]

The idea is if you can pass the other tests, the cops don't necessarily have to bring you in to the station.

And I think I'm going to regret this..

Deacon- Have you ever encountered some one who can have one drink and be drunk? That's what I had in mind when I said some one can be impaired with a BAC of 'X' but not 'Y'.

[Deacon]

If someone can be "technically" drunk after one drink, they're likely to have taken a rather large and/or strong drink and be a very small person or otherwise have other mitigating factors involved. Regardless, drinks != BAC. Blood alcohol levels refer to the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream compared the rest of the bloodstream, not how many drinks you've had. The latter affects the former, but differently for everyone and differs even then from instance to instance depending on other factors such as hydration and food intake and such.